Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Biography, Plot, Filming, Development, Box office, Trailer

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Mad Max: Fury Road is a 2015 Australian post-apocalyptic action film co-written, co-produced, and directed by George Miller. Miller collaborated with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris on the screenplay. The fourth instalment and a reboot of the Mad Max franchise, it was produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, Kennedy Miller Mitchell, and RatPac-Dune Entertainment and distributed by Roadshow Entertainment in Australia and by Warner Bros. Pictures internationally. The film stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, with Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee, and Courtney Eaton in supporting roles. Set in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland where petrol and water are scarce commodities, Fury Road follows Max Rockatansky, who joins forces with Imperator Furiosa against cult leader Immortan Joe and his army, leading to a lengthy road battle. Miller came up with the idea for Fury Road in 1987, but the film spent many years in development hell before pre-production started in 1998.

Attempts to shoot the film in the 2000s were delayed numerous times due to the September 11 attacks, the Iraq War, and controversies surrounding star Mel Gibson, leading Miller to recast Gibson’s role of Max Rockatansky. Miller decided to pursue the film again in 2007, after the release of the animated comedy Happy Feet. In 2009, Miller announced that filming would begin in early 2011. Hardy was cast as Max in June 2010, with production planned to begin that November. Principal photography was delayed several more times before it actually began in July 2012. The film wrapped in December 2012, although additional footage was shot in November 2013. Fury Road premiered in Los Angeles on 7 May 2015, and was released in Australia on 14 May. It grossed $375.7 million at the worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing Mad Max film, but is estimated to have incurred overall losses of $20–40 million when all of the advertising and other costs are added to its $154.6–185.1 million production budget.

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Plot.

With the world a desert wasteland following societal collapse and warfare over resources, a survivor named Max Rockatansky, who is haunted by memories of all the people he has failed to protect, is captured and taken to warlord Immortan Joe’s Citadel, where he is imprisoned and used as a “blood bag” for Nux, a sick War Boy. Meanwhile, Imperator Furiosa, one of Joe’s lieutenants, is sent in the armoured “War Rig” to trade produce for petrol and ammunition with two of Joe’s allies. When Joe realises his five wives are fleeing in the Rig, he leads his army in pursuit of Furiosa, calling on the aid of Gas Town and the Bullet Farm. Nux joins the pursuit with Max strapped to his car, and a battle ensues. Furiosa drives into a sand storm and loses all of her pursuers, except Nux,

who attempts to sacrifice himself to blow up the Rig. Max frees himself and restrains Nux, and Furiosa destroys their car. After the storm, Max finds Furiosa repairing the Rig, accompanied by Joe’s wives: Toast, Capable, the Dag, Cheedo, and Angharad, the last of whom is heavily pregnant with Joe’s child. Max tries to steal the Rig, but he does not know the code to bypass the kill switches, so he begrudgingly joins up with Furiosa and the wives. Nux boards the Rig as it leaves and attempts to kill Furiosa. He is overcome and thrown out, and Joe’s army picks him up when they pass by.

Furiosa drives through a canyon controlled by a biker gang, having arranged to trade fuel for her safe passage, but the gang turns on her when they spot an army approaching, forcing her to flee. The bikers detonate the canyon walls to block Joe and then pursue the Rig, only stopping when the fuel pod explodes. Joe drives over the blockade in a monster truck and catches up with the Rig, allowing Nux to board and attack Furiosa again, but he trips before reaching the cab. While helping Max, Angharad falls off the Rig and is fatally run over by Joe, who temporarily halts his pursuit.

Development.

Mad Max: Fury Road had a lengthy gestation period. In 1987, George Miller had the idea of making a Mad Max movie that was “almost a continuous chase”. He got an idea for the plot in 1998 when he was walking across a street in Los Angeles, and about a year later, while travelling from Los Angeles to Australia, a story in which “violent marauders were fighting, not for oil or for material goods, but for human beings” coalesced. Miller said he worked with five storyboard artists to design the film in storyboard form before writing the screenplay, producing about 3,500 panels, which is almost the same as the number of shots as in the finished film, as he wanted the film to be almost a continuous chase, with relatively little dialogue, and to have the visuals come first. The screenplay was written with Nico Lathouris and cult British comic creator Brendan McCarthy, who also designed many of the new characters and vehicles.

Filming.

Cinematographer John Seale came out of retirement to lens Fury Road, replacing Dean Semler, the cinematographer of the previous two Mad Max films, who left the film near the end of its preparation period. It was the first project Seale filmed with digital cameras. He outfitted his crew with six Arri Alexa Pluses and four Alexa Ms, as well as a number of Canon EOS 5Ds and Olympus PEN E-P5s that were used as crash cams for the action sequences, as the Canon cameras were simple consumer-grade ones, when one would break, the crew would simply source new ones locally from an airport store. Because of the fast-paced editing style Miller intended for the film, he asked Seale to keep the point of interest of each shot in the centre of the frame so the audience did not have to search for it.

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Box office.

Mad Max: Fury Road grossed $154.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $221.6 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $375.7 million against a production budget of $154.6–185.1 million. While the film made a profit, it did not quite meet its expectations. The Hollywood Reporter calculated that the loss incurred by the film was around $20–40 million. In the United States and Canada, the film was released in 3,702 theatres the same weekend as Pitch Perfect 2. It earned $16.77 million its opening day, which included $3.7 million from Thursday night screenings at 3,000 theatres. The film grossed $45.4 million its opening weekend, finishing in second at the box office behind Pitch Perfect 2 ($69.2 million).